Okay i understand. I actually find them very usefull as part of the wolfpack mechanic + Ship mastery system and second in command with the smallcraft skills. It is very very strong and i could easily just auto play with mediocre frigattes + destroyers and win against fleets double my FP. I'll stick to vanilla AI for now, the weapon and autofire changes are actually very good.
Are your destroyers Safety Overriden (or with simillar modded system)? I did run vanilla Manticore fleet for tests and they didn't behave all that bad. AI makes them very brave indeed, but at the same time enemy capitals didn't wreck the Manticores. Perhaps the difference is that my fleet had longe range weapons?
Yes long range weapons help a lot. I usually use a strike and back off tactic which works well with vanilla A.I. but with AI tweaks it seems they never use the "back off" tactic
I also use saftey overrides and unstable injector on them often times. Short range burst, disabling shields/engines and then backing off for the capitals/cruisers to finish off.
